Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Bill

moved Amendment No. 212ZB: 212ZB: Clause 110, page 70, line 20, at end insert— ““( ) Nothing in this section shall negate the right of elected councillors to have regard to the policies they placed before the electors prior to their election.”” The noble Lord said: This may be another cheeky amendment, because it is an attempt to reinstate the importance of democracy. Local authorities are democratically elected bodies and people who get elected to them, even nowadays, do so on the basis of wanting to do things and put through policies. The problem is that when they are elected they find that all these strategies are in place—and in future we will have the local area agreement in place, which will last for three years. It is almost impossible to change anything. One councillor getting elected would never change the world overnight with his ideas, but when there are electoral contests between different parties on different programmes and ideas, and there is a change of control, people expect to see some change. The more that local authorities are tied in to the kind of thing implied by local area agreements, which are statutory documents that can be changed only by long drawn-out statutory processes and which then require the agreement of the Secretary of State, it is very difficult to see the purpose of having local elections any more. The real problem is that people stop fighting local elections on policies. It does not matter who gets in—the policies remain the same because they are all embedded and you cannot change them. It is therefore done simply on personalities. As we have seen with some mayoral contests, that produces some odd results. It is happening more and more at local level. It is all done on the basis of personalities. It is increasingly done on the basis of negative campaigning by all the parties, and I am not making political points here at all. That is what is happening in the system. You get elected but find that, whatever you said and whatever you got elected to, you cannot do much about it except as part of a very slow and long-drawn-out process. It is a negation of democracy. This amendment is just a gesture of defiance on behalf of old-fashioned local elections where people got elected, knew what they got elected for and, within the next few months, stuck up their hands and voted for something different. You cannot do that any more and it is a real shame. The more we dismantle this incredibly complex and bureaucratic system which is enveloping and engulfing local government, the better it will be. I move a vote of defiance on behalf of local democracy. I beg to move.